The present invention relates to digital mixers and programs for use in, for example, adjustment of audio signals in music content recording and concerts.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 2003-100066 discloses a digital mixer, which includes an input/output channel section for processing audio signals of a plurality of input/output channels by means of various filters etc. In the disclosed digital mixer, there are also provided effecters, graphic equalizers, etc. insertable in desired ones of the input/output channels. Positioning all of displays and operators for setting a multiplicity of parameters for the input/output channel section, effecters, etc. on an operation panel is unpractical, because, in such a case, the operation panel has to have an enormous area. Thus, today, it is common to provide a multi-purpose display on the operation panel and set/display a wide variety of parameters by switching between various setting screens displayed on the display. When parameters for the input/output channel section are to be set, for example, any one of the input/output channels is selected, and detailed parameters are set for the selected input/output channel. Such a selected input/output channel will be referred to “selected channel”.
Further, “PM5D Instruction Manual” published by Yamaha Corporation in 2004 (hereinafter “Non-patent Literature 1”) discloses a digital mixer, which has a bookmark function (referred to as “user define key function” in Non-patent Literature 1) to allow a particular setting screen to be readily called to a display. According to the disclosure in Non-patent Literature 1, a desired setting screen is bookmarked (or bookmark-registered), and then the thus-bookmarked setting screen can be called and displayed on the display by a user merely depressing a predetermined bookmark button. Where the bookmarked setting screen pertains to setting of parameters of a given input/output channel, bookmark data indicative of the bookmarked content does not include data indicating the selected channel. Namely, according to the conventional technique, the channel selected at the time of the bookmark-registration of the setting screen is ignored, and the called setting screen will have reflected therein parameters of a channel selected at the time of the screen calling.
When the user performs operation on the setting screen, a detailed setting window for displaying/setting more detailed content about a desired portion of the setting screen is sometimes displayed as a popup window. Thus, there has been a need for arrangements to permit bookmark registration of such a detailed setting window as well. However, if the displayed detailed setting window is bookmark-registered as-is, the bookmark data would include data indicative of both of the background setting screen and popped-up detailed setting window; thus, in this case, there arises the problem that both the background setting screen and the detailed setting window are called in response to operation of the bookmark button. Namely, with the technique disclosed in Non-patent Literature 1, it was impossible to call only the detailed setting window with a current setting screen as a background screen.
Further, because the conventional bookmark data does not include information indicating a selected channel, it was impossible to bookmark a particular setting screen pertaining to a particular channel. Such an arrangement may be convenient when a user wants to make settings for a plurality of channels using a bookmarked parameter setting screen while changing the selected channel, but it tends to be inconvenient for another user who wants to call a screen for editing particular parameters of a particular channel. Especially, where a popped-up detailed setting window is to be bookmarked, there would arise frequent changes in the selected channel because the window is intended for adjustment of a particular channel; thus, the necessary operation tends to become complicated.